Personal profile

LLB Hons (Lancaster), LLM (Lancaster), PhD (Lancaster). Julia began her academic career at the University of Lancaster where she held a lectureship in law, after having been awarded an Iredell Trust Research Scholarship by the university to complete a doctoral thesis on law and applied moral philosophy. From Aston University Business School, where she was appointed as Director of Legal Studies, Julia joined Leicester De Montfort University Law School in 2007 and is currently a Reader in Social Justice and the School of Law Head of Research Students. She has held visiting lectureships at various international, universities including Nantes, Lyon, Stuttgart and Beijing and has acted as External Examiner for inter alia the University of Buckingham, University of Leeds and the University of Southampton.

Her research is interdisciplinary and spans legal philosophy, legal semiotics, social justice, food justice, law and emotion, literary jurisprudence, human rights, critical legal theory, cyber-law, corporate governance, international law, CSR and sustainability. Julia has chaired and convened both the ‘law and literature’ stream for the Socio-Legal Studies Association annual conference since 2008, and the ‘legal theory’ stream for the annual Critical Legal conference since 2010. She has been invited to present her research at numerous international conferences and seminars, including the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, and has also given many keynote and plenary presentations.

Julia is Associate Editor and founder member of the Social Responsibility Journal, is regularly asked to review articles for a broad selection of law and law-related journals. She has also acted as guest editor on themed special issues, including most recently the Liverpool Law Review: a journal of contemporary legal and social policy issues in 2017. She is the author of a large and diverse range of interdisciplinary academic journal articles and book chapters, and is the author of Jurisprudence published by Pearson; now in its 3rd edition. Julia is completing a 100,000 word manuscript on 'Law and the Passions: A Discrete History' for Routledge to be published in 2018, and is working on a co-authored monograph 'Corporate Social Responsibility: Global Food Supply Chain’ on social justice in relation to food poverty, policy and sustainability, also with Routledge for publication in 2019.

Click here to see a full listing of Julia Shaw's publications and outputs.

Key research outputs

Law and the Passions: A Discrete History, Routledge, forthcoming 2018

Jurisprudence (3rd edition) Pearson, Harlow, in press 2018

‘Lefebvre and law: social justice, new technologies and the spatial imaginary’, in The Routledge Handbook of Henri Lefebvre, the City and Urban Society, M. E Leary-Owhin & J.P. McCarthy (eds), Routledge (9,500 words) in press 2018

Law and the Literary Imagination: the contribution of literature to modern legal scholarship, in The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Literature, M. Mack & B. Stocker (eds), Palgrave Macmillan (9,000 words) in press 2018

‘From Beethoven to Bowie: identity framing, social justice and the sound of law’, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law in special issue: ‘Music, Cultural Heritage and Law’,10.1007/s11196-017-9533-x (2017) 1-25

‘Aesthetics of Law and Literary License: an anatomy of the legal imagination’, 38(1) Liverpool Law review: a journal of contemporary legal and social policy issues (2017) 83-105

‘Reimagining Justice: Aesthetics and Law’, 38(1) Liverpool Law Review: a journal of contemporary legal and social policy issues (2017) 1-10

‘From homo economicus to homo roboticus: an exploration of the transformative impact of the technological imaginary’, Vol. 11(3) International Journal of Law in Context (2015) 245-264

‘The politics and poetics of spaces and places: mapping the multiple geographies of identity in a cultural posthuman era’, Vol. 12(3) Journal of Organisational Transformation & Social Change (2015), 234-256

‘Compassion and the criminal justice system: stumbling along towards a jurisprudence of love and forgiveness’, Vol. 11(1) International Journal of Law in Context (2015) 92-107

‘From fact to feeling: an explication of the mimetic relation between law, language and emotion’ (with H.J. Shaw)Vol. 35(1) Liverpool Law Review: a journal of contemporary legal and social policy issues (2014) 42-64

‘A Study of the Semiotic and Narrative Forms of Divine Influence in Secular Legal Systems’ in monographic issue Vol. 26(1) International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique (2013) 95-113

‘The Continuing Relevance of Ars Poetica to Legal Scholarship and the Modern Lawyer’ Vol. 25(1) International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique (2012) 71-93

Conference attendance

Lex enim sensibile and the wisdom of kisses, Law and the Senses II: Human, Posthuman, Inhuman Sensings Colloquium. Westminster Law School, University of Westminster, London, 2017

The new human condition: Reimagining the technologies of control in the Anthropocene, 10th European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSAeu) Conference, Stockholm University, Sweden, 2016

'Law, metaphor and literary license: an anatomy of the legal imagination’, sponsored by the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) and Journal of Law and Society, hosted by the University of Southampton, 25 September 2015

‘The significance of the passions in mapping the legal landscape’, Centre of Legal Philosophy, Ethics and Culture, in the Public Lecture Series, hosted by Queen Mary University, London, 4 December 2014

‘Law, Narrative and Literary License: An Anatomy of the Judicial Imagination’, International Law, Language and LiteratureColloquium, hosted by University Paris Ouest-Nanterre, France, June 2011

‘Reimagining the Humanities within Socio-Legal Studies in an Age of Disenchantment’, one-day conference ‘Exploring the socio of socio-legal studies’ hosted by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, November 2010

‘Compulsion v Conscience: modified rule of law as realisation of the democratic ideal’, University of Birmingham Centre for the Study of Global Ethics, December 2004

‘An explication of the EU constitution: human rights, honour and humiliation’ at a conference ‘Europe’s torn identity’, funded by the European Commission and hosted by the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, October 2003

‘From homo economicus to homo roboticus: law and the posthuman, Socio-legal Studies Annual Conference, University of Warwick, April 2015

‘The politics and poetics of spaces and places: mapping the multiple geographies of social and legal identity in a cultural posthuman era’, Socio-legal Studies Annual Conference, University of Aberdeen, April 2014

‘Let’s fight: understanding law as an entropic phenomenon’, Critical Legal Conference, Queen’s University Belfast, September 2013

‘A diasporic reading of the multiple geographies of social and legal identity in a cultural posthuman era’, Socio-legal Studies Annual Conference, University of York, April 2013

‘Deconstructing Identity and Difference in a Post-human Era’, Monstrosity and Humanity: Monster Conference, De Montfort University, November 2011

‘A view from the rabbit hole: monsters, myths and the possibility of justice’, Critical Legal Conference, Aberystwyth University, September 2011

‘The Gulf War might never have happened but hacking certainly did: Baudrillard, Nihilism and News International’ (with David Crowther), International Conference on Organisational Governance, De Montfort University, September 2011

‘Engaging with the multiple languages of law in an age of disenchantment’, Socio-legal Studies Annual Conference, University of Sussex, April 2011

‘The Transformative Power of Literature: Rebuilding the necessary connection between law and emotion’, Critical Legal Conference, Utrecht, September 2010

‘Beyond Regulation: Fact, Fiction and the Eccentric World of Finance’, 9th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility, University of Zagreb, Croatia, June 2010

‘Law and story-telling: connecting facts and fiction’, and Law & Literature stream Chair, Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, University of West England, Bristol, April 2010

‘Constructing a bridge between legal education and literature’ and stream Chair, 27th Standing Conference on Organisational Symbolism, Copenhagen Business School, July 2009

‘Nomos, Narrative and Broken Promises’ and ‘The Empowerment of Women in the Workplace’, 7th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility, Durham University, September 2008

‘Sisyphus, Seneca and the Last Taboo’ and ‘Fags and Fiction: Regulation and the Tobacco Industry’, and Law & Literature stream Chair, Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, Manchester, March 2008

Internally funded research project information

Awarded a research grant by the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA) in 2016, to investigate urban food poverty within the context of social justice and recent calls for a ‘human right to healthy food’; using Cardiff and the Valleys as a case study.

Professional esteem indicators

Editorial Appointnments

Associate Editor and founder member of Social Responsibility Journal, Emerald, ISSN 1747-117

Guest Editorial Roles

Guest Editor of Liverpool Law Review: a journal of contemporary legal and social policy issues 38(1) on aesthetics and law, 2017

Guest Editor, Liverpool Law Review: a journal of contemporary legal and social policy issues Vol. 35(1) on law and literature, 2014

Guest Editor, Contemporary Issues in Law Vol. 10(4) on law and literature (vol.II) 2010

Guest Editor, Contemporary Issues in Law Vol. 9(4) on law and literature (vol.I) 2009

Journal Refereeing information

Journal of Law and Society

Journal of Business Ethics

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

International Journal of Law and Management

International Journal of Law in Context

Law and the Humanities

Liverpool Law Review: a journal of contemporary legal and social policy issues